Yoda undertakes his final pilgrimage to learn the secrets of immortality, traveling to the abandoned planet Moraband, ancient homeworld of the Sith. There, he encounters spectres of ancient Sith, most prominently Darth Bane, creator of the Rule of Two, and, in an ancient sacrificial chamber, an illusion cast by the mysterious Darth Sidious.
The illusion contains many nods to how the Clone Wars will end, with Yoda finding himself accompanying Anakin Skywalker and a squad of the 501st Legion to a warehouse in a Coruscant industrial district that the Sith have been tracked down in. There, they find Sidious and Dooku conducting a ritual, mirroring what the real Sidious and Dooku are doing at the same moment. In the vision, the clones are taken down, but as Yoda faces Sidious, Anakin fights and kills Dooku exactly as he will on the Invisible Hand. Yoda and Sidious' fight takes them onto the precarious catwalks outside, and Anakin follows. The Jedi Grand Master ultimately chooses to let himself fall to his doom to save Anakin, but finds that Sidious' robes are now empty.
On Coruscant, Sidious irately informs Dooku that they have failed to break Master Yoda. On Moraband, Yoda wakes up to find himself faced by the Serene Priestess again, who gives him some advice before departing with a last note that "There is another... Skywalker."
Upon his return to the Jedi Temple, Yoda tells Obi-Wan and Mace his concern about the path the Jedi have been heading down due to the Clone Wars, but believes he's found a way to ensure a different kind of victory.
Tropes:
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Sidious enacts one of these in an attempt to break Yoda's mind. It fails.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Clone Wars are coming to an end and Yoda has learned how to manifest his spirit after death, but the Jedi are still in the dark regarding Palpatine's true nature and Order 66 is going according to plan. However, Yoda declares that he now knows the true way to victory — not over the Sith or Separatists, but for all time.
- Black Speech: Sidious begins the ritual with an incantation spoken in Balc, the language of the ancient Sith.
- Blood Magic: Sidious' ritual requires a drop of Dooku's blood to commence.
- Call-Forward:
- During Yoda's vision, Anakin decapitates Dooku in the exact same way he will in Revenge of the Sith.
- At the end of his conversation with the Priestesses, Yoda hears Darth Vader breathing and the birth of the Skywalker twins.
- The last thing the Serene Priestess tells Yoda as she departs is "There is another ... Skywalker."
- Near the end of the vision, when Yoda is clinging by one hand to the edge of a broken, dangling piece of catwalk with Sidious dangling farther up, their positions are almost identical to the ones at the conclusion of their coming fight in the Senate at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
- Canon Immigrant: Moraband, better known as Korriban, the homeworld of the Sith, originated in Tales of the Jedi and was made famous in Knights of the Old Republic.note
- Casting Gag: Of a very ironic variety. Darth Bane, founder of the modern Sith Order and thus the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire Star Wars saga, is voiced by none other than Luke Skywalker himself.
- Evil Sorcerer: Sidious reveals that he can employ ancient Dark Side sorcery.
- Fade to Black: At the end, leading into the credits.
- Final Boss Preview: Yoda fights Palpatine/Sidious the same way the two will eventually fight in the Senate after the Clone Wars have ended and the Empire is established.
- The Final Temptation: When his illusion of Sifo-Dyas fails, Sidious employs it.Sidious: Let him go! Let him die! And you can stop all that I will do!
- Grand Finale: Of the franchise's pre-Disney era. It is the final story that is shared by the Canon and Legends continuities.
- Large Ham: Sidious, as this is Tim Curry's first (and currently last) time he's able to cut loose as the Dark Lord of the Sith.
- Limited Wardrobe: Averted for once; Count Dooku wears a different outfit in this episode than he usually does.
- Mood Whiplash: Averted; like "The Wrong Jedi", this episode does not end with the bombastic, energetic theme music every other episode of the series did. Instead, the final credits of this era of Star Wars ends on a somber yet hopeful note.
- Mundane Utility: Yoda uses his lightsaber to light up the dark inside of the Sith tomb.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Dooku feels Yoda's actions on Moraband before Sidious even summons him. Sidious outright says that only someone significant to Dooku would be felt this way in this situation.
- Off with His Head!: In Yoda's vision, Anakin beheads Dooku with the Count's lightsaber and his own, just as he will eventually do for real in Revenge Of The Sith.
- One-Word Title: "Sacrifice".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sidious is legitimately unnerved when he fails to break Yoda.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: How Yoda deduces that the specter of Sifo-Dyas is a façade.
- Rule of Symbolism: The final battle between Sidious, Yoda, Anakin, Dooku, and the clone troopers is heavy with symbolism.
- The clone troopers being electrocuted by Dooku reflects their corruption by way of Order 66.
- Sidious grievously wounding Anakin reflects his transformation into Darth Vader.
- Yoda refusing to strike down Sidious in favor of saving Anakin reflects how he will one day retreat from a battle with the Sith to save the next generation of Skywalkers, which will one day help Anakin find redemption.
- Anakin's life hanging in the balance during Yoda and Sidious' duel reflects him being torn between the Light and the Dark.
- Yoda uncloaking Sidious only to find nothing indicates how the Jedi will never see what's right in front of them until it's too late.
- At the end of Yoda's Sith-induced vision in which he ultimately sacrifices himself to save Anakin, after a conversation with the priestesses, he hears the birth of Luke and Leia and Darth Vader's breathing.
- Even before all this, the Sith are represented on Moraband by an ever-shifting mass of serpents.
- Series Fauxnale: This episode happened to be the last one in post-production during the Disney buy-out of Lucasfilm, truncating the full season and becoming the final episode of The Clone Wars and the Prequel Trilogy era. Star Wars Rebels and the Sequel films took focus until a seventh and proper Finale Season was announced five years later in 2018.
- Special Edition Title: Just like the season 5 finale, the end credits use a mournful version of Ahsoka's leitmotif.
- Worthy Opponent: This episode is unquestionably the point in time when Sidious realizes that Yoda is this to him, setting the stage for Revenge of the Sith when he initially tries to flee from the Jedi Grand Master.
Yoda: No longer certain that one ever does win a war, I am. For in fighting the battles, the bloodshed, already lost we have. Yet, open to us a path remains, that unknown to the Sith is. Through this path, victory we may yet find. Not victory in the Clone Wars, but victory for all time.
